Random Mumble: I'm Sorry Mother Earth

I found myself outside, by the dumpsters at Bear Tavern today spray painting frames for our upcoming exhibition. How terrible- spray painting on Earth Day. 

The grass had black outlines. Those that know me know that I love Earth Day. 

Every year we do a huge project at school related to using recyclables in our collaborative murals. This year, we had to hold off on our garden mosaics for Earth 

Day due to PARCC test prep and testing. Fortunately, we will be able to get some mosaic time in tomorrow as the numbers will be lower at school for Take Your Child to Work Day.

The third grade teachers who are quite artsy offered the idea to work on the murals during this "lower number day" So, we will be beautifying our garden space tomorrow for a bit. Stay tuned!

April Tots on Tour

What a busy weekend at GFS! Usually the parking lot isn't packed when I pull in but it seemed as though the grounds had been open for hours when in reality, it had been only 10-15 minutes. 

Tomorrow will be another busy day as it is the annual 'Day at the Fair'(grounds)

The flowers are in full bloom and fed with the GFS super power plant food for the most amazing petal sizes.

One of the things I've cherished at GFS are the volunteers that help out with my Class. They are instrumental in making every single Tots run so easily for mall of these years.

Today, we set up for a printmaking/collage lesson using bubble wrap and painted papers... a project that I saw on Pinterest and saved for the perfect day.

The kids had a fun time painting the bubble wrap in sea colors. Then they painted warm colored papers to use for the fish. We sold out in the 11am class, as usual, and had decent numbers for the 1pm.

All in all, a great morning/afternoon.

HVRSD Art Exhibit @ Capital Health- Hopewell

This afternoon we had a small opening event at Capital Health for the HVRSD art exhibit.

It was nice to see some of my favorite art colleagues and my students with their families. 

Below are the 6 boards for Bear Tavern that I filled up as much as I could.

Art in the Park 2015

It's registration time for Art in the Park- one of the most amazing local art camps!

Held in Kunkle Park, Pennington, campers can take a week of morning art and leave with a TON of fantastic projects taught by guest artists. 

This is my 8th year as a guest artist.... Goodness time flies! Email me if you would like to know which weeks I am teaching this year. 

Here's the link for registration. Get it in ASAP, Art in the Park always sells out!

http://www.hopewelltwp.org/recreation/ART_IN_THE_PARK_REG_COVER_LTR.pdf

Grade 4: Clay Castles

Clay castles are a project that we haven't been able to do each year due to time constraints, but I am happy that I could add this project in this year for my 4th graders (4B, 4V, 4M).

Below are a few pictures that I took on Monday. The school schedule has been so irregular recently, I am amazed we got this project in and it feels as though some classes took ages to complete it due to so many missed days!

We began by viewing a slideshow that detailed parts of a castle and using the iPads to look at different types of castles and their towers. Next was to create a sketch to follow. 

We discussed different methods of handbuilding in clay and students chose the best method for themselves. 

I really love the details that many students put on their castles.

Random Mumble: Best Part of the Day

Today had many good moments, teaching and otherwise. 

Actually, as I think about it, each and every class impressed me in some unique way today. 

With Mrs. Finnegan's 3rd grade class, it felt as though we could just spend the class period talking about Van Gogh and Lego Sculptures. With Van Gogh, I was impressed at how much my lovelies remembered from last year but moreso how great it was to analyze The Starry Night with them. We discussed line and color and the night sky on the French countryside. While I know a lot about Van Gogh, I feel personal fulfillment when a student asks me a question that I can't answer with 100% certainty. Why? Well, because the question must have been a great one and it requires me to learn more and think about my favorite artist in a new way. We explored making marks to indicate movement via charcoal and natural colored paper in honor of Van Gogh's beautiful preliminary sketches that ended up becoming the famous painting.

Here are a few photos of my students working. 

The Art of the Brick= A Must See!

One of the best parts of spring break was spending the day in Philly taking in the joy of the city, the warm spring air and checking out "The Art of Brick" exhibit at the Franklin Institute. 

I know that words like "awesome" and "amazing" and "cherish" and "adore" and "fantastic", "love", inspired", etc, etc. are a huge part of my vocabulary but seriously, this exhibit was all of these things. The price isn't cheap for a family of 4 but we went anyway and made a full day of the city. The exhibit was worth every penny in inspiration and looks amazement on our faces. Nathan Sawaya is the man behind the phenomenal sculptures all created from Legos. Thing is, he not only creates famous art reproductions in Legos but he creates the most outstanding figurative sculptures using anywhere from 1,700 Lego bricks up to 80,000. Without spoiling the exhibit, lets just say his work takes you on a journey. Curated beautifully, we traveled from room to room soaking up the creative and technical genius of Sawaya. 

'Yellow" is the iconic Sawaya sculpture on all of the advertisements. It's fantastic to see the sculpture of a chest being torn open with Legos spilling out. 

Below are a few more pictures from the exhibit. I took dozens of pictures but here are a few. 

Tree Hugger

Sawaya does public installations of tree huggers. Here I am at the photo op "station" hugging a fake tree.

I truly hope that you can take the time this spring or summer to visit this exhibit. You will not regret it.